What do you think?
CIPO - OPIC
(Info at site, Sept. 14th & 15th entry)
W.
Comments
I tried that. What will happen is it will log me in, and then the moment I click on the link for the thread, it logs me back out again. I can't get a post in edgewise. ;)
If you want, we can just stick to this forum. I do have a question... What do you think of the idea of running it as a non-profit co-op? Anyone else care to weigh in?
Non-profit is pretty much how I run most everything I do, but I think something like this would require full-time staff, and thus it kinda shoots the idea of running completely non-profit out of the water (i.e., lawyers rarely work pro-bono (free)).
A certain number of people would probably volunteer their time and efforts, thus keeping the costs down, but there would most definately have to be some sort of membership fee to cover expenses.
W.
Here's how I envisioned it working:
People would pay a membership fee to be a part of the system. Then, as they buy stuff, the company "makes a profit", but at the end of the year, based upon how much stuff a person bought, they get part of those profits disbursed back to them as a profit-share. REI (sports and outdoor gear) works in exactly this way. If you are a non-member, you still can buy, but you don't get to be in the profit-sharing loop.
The products would of course be the results of what the artists (also members) produce. They would get a large part of their sale price as profit, and also share in the profit-sharing if they buy other stuff.
There were also other ideas. One of them was to be able to make custom CDs for customers. Only instead of them downloading and burning their own discs, they would tell a central server what they want, and the server could then make the disc from pristine masters (instead of lossy compressed files) and mail it to them.
A happy medium may have to be worked out with what you allow people to download in terms of songs (maybe keep services like song downloads and custom discs restricted to members?) and such. The point being that people should be allowed to download songs (maybe medium-quality like 128kbps mp3s) to know which ones they like. Yes, it would be depending on the honor system for people to then buy the discs and songs, but if you can guarantee quality, I think it can be made to work.
I'm just rambling now. Please let me know what you think.
The AOIRA is to start it's birthing process now...
I've registered the domains, and threw up an initial site to start the discussion, and the 'genesis' effect.
CIPO - OPIC
Some might not be able to get to it yet, as I just registered the domains a short time ago.
Get in, registered, and make your voice heard. This, if well thought out enough (thanks to contributions from yourselves), could swing things back into indies favor.
W.
BTW, I'm looking for moderators, writers, and researchers to help out with the creation of this idea. If you want to help out, get in touch.
Hi, I can't help but chime in here for the same reason. The forum format does weird things with me alot of the time W. When I see yabbse I keep going. Hate the program. On the other note, why re-invent the wheel here. Why not use RO for this? Recording.org is a choice domain for music related organizations plus we're heading this way anyway so utilizing what we have in place make tons of sense to me. Just thought I would mention that but understand wanting to be on your own.
Great idea and bests wishes either way.
Cheers!
I would absolutely love to join the discussion on your site, but YaBB refuses to keep me logged in, and I cannot reply. ;)